Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Let's Scare Jessica to Death

I love this movie. It's a little dreamy, and the setting is right, and Jessica's frayed and insecure behavior is both endearing and pathetic. It's probably just something the actress suffered from herself, but Jessica sometimes begins to trail or break off in the middle of a sentence, in a place that isn't appropriate to just stop speaking. Like she thinks better of finishing the thought, or loses the desire and can't keep it up enough to at least sound normal.

Also, the soundtrack is amazing.

Emily's joke. "There was this enormous cake that was terrorizing England - Devil's Food cake. And it would ooze into the windows and into the doors and engulf the people. It'd eat everything in its way. It was traveling down the coast from Scotland, and whenever it would come to a town or a village, it would call out, 'Here comes the cake! Here comes the cake!' BBC sent out an emergency [broadcast warning everyone not to open] their doors [to the cake or else it would engulf them.] This old lady hears [something outside] and she's got her ear to the door, and she says, "Who's there? Who's there?" And a voice comes back, 'It's not the cake!'"

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I first saw this in 1977 at age 12 and it terrified me! I love it's dream-like feeling! No gore, but lots of atmosphere. I love the county setting and isolated old farmhouse and Jessica questioning her sanity. I still watch this about once a year, at night and alone.It is a great little under-rated gem of a movie with a great cast and acting and beautiful location scene's that fit the movie perfectly.Emily coming out of the cove is one of the best scenes in the movie.

Does anyone know the "cartoon film" that Emily is referring to in "Let's Scare Jessica to Death"? It's a quirky movie cartoon that might be titled, "Frankenstein's Chocolate Cake." In it, Frankenstein, as a pastry chef, creates a monstrously delicious chocolate cake. He invites other chefs in the village near his castle, to see his creation. Realizing the threat to their livelihoods and to the traditional techniques for making chocolate cakes they rise up and burn the castle down. But as the triumphant bakers march back into town, cheering and chanting that the monstrously delicious chocolate cake was destroyed, a voice far away in the basement of the burned castle mutters, "Oh no I'm not." At this point Emily is describing the rest of the cartoon with the cake knocking on some poor peasant woman's door who asks "who's there" and it replies "It's not the cake." so she opens her door and it eats her. Help me find this Film.... Please!